Rebecca Skloot spent 10 years researching and writing her first book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a New York Times bestseller about a 31-year-old black mother of five who died of cervical cancer in 1951, and whose cancerous cells—taken without her knowledge—launched a biomedical revolution. Both a family saga and a clear-eyed exploration of cancer, racism, scientific ethics, and poverty, Skloot’s book was named Amazon’s Best Book of 2010. It is being made into an HBO movie produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball.
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